That Side of Me
by oh i'm flying
Summary: "It's just... a lot." I said finally, scooting in to his arms.  He rubbed my back reassuringly.  "I lived for a long time expecting to die any day.  But Gillian?  That's not her life; she didn't sign up for that.  It's just wrong."
1. Chapter 1

My heart fell through the adrenaline, and I slammed my body in to the door. Being lightweight usually worked in my favor, but this time it didn't. I cursed as my shoulder bounced painfully off the metal.

"Gill!" Lightman yelled. When I stepped back to re-analyze the situation - mainly the lock, grappling for the mutli-purpose tool I had stuck in my pocket - he stormed past me, trying the same move I did. The door rattled in its frame, and without hesitation, he did it again, the metal door breaking free of the lock and creaking open slowly. We both looked on in horror.

"Door." I pointed at him. He was frozen, staring at her. Gillian was tied to a chair, her wrists bound behind her back. She'd managed to spit out the gag, but her face was rubbed raw in several places, and her body was covered in rags and dried blood. She shivered in only an oversized white t-shirt and underwear.

"Dr. Lightman, I need you to WATCH THE DOOR." I repeated, bending down behind her and flipping open the knife. Her wrists were rubbed bright red but thankfully didn't seem to be bleeding, and they fell limply to her sides. Finally Lightman stepped back to the door, watching us over his shoulder every couple seconds. This was getting dangerous, fast.

"Leila." My name was soft and weak on her lips. I draped my field coat over her shoulders before bending down to free her legs.

"Dr. Foster, can you walk?" I asked seriously, sawing through the rope while trying to watch her skin. Her ankles weren't as lucky as her wrists, and the rope was soaked in blood. She'd lost so much blood. I wiped the back of my free hand across my forehead.

"I think..." She pulled the jacket around herself, startlng when she found the compact handgun in the pocket.

"You need that you use it." I said seriously, standing up and offering her my hand. "Come on."

"Gillian..." Lightman choked out her name when I led her out the door. Her steps were tenative.

"You have time for a reunion later." I snapped. "Here, you help her." My glock was balanced comfortably back in my hand. "Not slowly, either."

We limped down the hall, essentially a sitting duck, and I didn't have to fire until we had slipped out the exit door towards the van. One perfectly aimed shot took out the rooftop sniper as we clambered in to the back of the white van, and I emptied my clip at group who swarmed out of the building as we pulled away.

"Oh, God." Ria was crouched next to Gillian, pressing a wet washcloth at her face, which Cal held on his lap. He was running his fingers through her hair.

"Give her a glucose gel and a bottle of water." I said, trying to think as I climbed toward the front. The kevlar was tight around my heaving chest, holding a layer of sweat and heat next to my heart. "And start checking her for anything that's still bleeding. Try and get a prelim... Hospital, Eli." I braced myself against the passenger seat, prodding at the GPS and leaving dirty smears on it.

"Are you-" He started.

"I'm fine. I'm fine." I cut him off. "But hurry."

It was then that I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. My forehead had a smear of blood along it, and I could smell gunpowder residue on my hand.

"Hannah, we're coming in hot to West Arlington, can you get me priority clearance at an E.R.?" I leaned against the bench seat, pressing my phone between my shoulder and cheek as I carefully pulled up the hem of Gillian's shirt. "Yeah, yeah - I'd code it as a 236. Thank you. I'll see you there." Her ribs were bruised and there were lacerations on her stomach, but her chest seemed to be falling regularly, and there weren't any signs of breaks.

God, what had this become?


	2. Chapter 2

"You're going to be okay, I promise." I said, trying to control the shaking and breaking in my voice as my fingertips searched for a pulse on the inside of Gillian's wrist. My heartbeat was drumming a staccato inside my ears as the van flew through traffic, adrenaline tugging me through the way it always had.

Adrenaline was reliable, adaptable. Gillian's pulse flew in fast bursts and drawn-out periods of slow thumps underneath the pad of my index finger. I shook my head, trying to focus my attention past the vibrations of the van, running a finger along the bruised side of her jaw. The artery there pushed weakly against the pressure of my hand. Thump, thump, thump – thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump, thump thump, thump.

I didn't know what the erratic heartbeat meant, but I wasn't comforted by it. The van lurched on, and I leaned against the back of the driver's seat. Ria passed me a gel packet wordlessly, and I ripped the foil open with my teeth, sliding the sickly sweet material down my throat.

This wasn't a field position, but I remembered perfectly the first time it masqueraded for one.

###

"_Where on earth __**were**__ you two?" Gillian parked her hands on her hips when Cal and I made it back in to the office on Friday afternoon. "Out of contact for two days? REALLY? I was ready to file a missing persons' report."_

_I was wearing the same outfit I'd been wearing those two days ago too, a now-dirty white button-down, skinny jeans, and scuffed up black heels. My hair was in disarray, pulling at the ponytail holder on the back of my head, and I had dirt smudged around my face. Underneath the tired dark circles under my eyes, my cheeks flushed with the exhilaration. A well-loved semi-automatic was still tucked in the waistband of my pants at the small of my back._

_"Sorry, Dr. Foster." I said, raking my bangs out of my face. Lightman smirked at her. He didn't look much better than I did, with a singed eyebrow and uneven scruff on top of the usual dirt._

_"Yeah, sorry, love." He drawled. She threw her hands up in frustration._

_"I don't even know what to do with you two. Are you suicidal?"_

_"It's only suicidal if you don't have the training." I said, untucking the gun from my pants and popping the clip out. She glared at me._

_"We got the job done, we're fine, love."_

_She shot a glare at him too._

_"I'm glad you're both alright. You're sleeping alone tonight." She turned on her heel and stalked off._

_"I guess that mean she doesn't want to go for burgers with us... sorry, Leila, I best catch up with her and make amends. You're alright, correct?"_

_I laughed._

_"I'm fine, Dr. Lightman. It was cake."_

_"Right then. See you Monday." He clapped me on the shoulder and stomped down the hallway after Foster. I sighed and headed towards the lab, throwing the empty gun on to the receptionist's desk._

###

"Leila, talk to me—" Eli's voice was strained. I jumped back up, taking a knee on the empty space between the two front seats.

"I can debrief you when we get there." I said, looking out at the beltway and trying to gauge our approximate position. Debriefing. How fluidly I slipped back in to that way of speaking, that style of operating. "We're going to be coming in to the first emergency exit at West Arlington, it's going to be the... second, right, I think, once you get off the exit. We should only be two or three clicks out so look sharp."

"What's going on back there? How is she?" He demanded, his eyes drifting to the rearview mirror. I pursed my lips. I'd been spoiled, and civilians didn't belong in field ops.

"Eyes on the road." I corrected.

"What's going **on**, Leila?" He demanded again, clenching the steering wheel and focusing on the asphalt with an equally-bad intensity. I put my hand on his nearer forearm. My fingers left smudges of dirt around their edges.

"She's in bad shape. She needs medical attention now, and the best way to do that is for you to get this car there as fast as you can. I know field first aid but I don't have the kind of training she needs."

"And you? And Lightman?"

"We're both fine." That wasn't entirely true, but we were fine – in comparison. I realized my fingers were pressing in to his arm tight enough to draw white, bloodless patterns around their tips, and I let my hand fall. "Here, this is your exit, up here." I held up my hand as he flipped the blinker on.

My stomach lurched as the glucose hit my system, a combination of sugar rush and nausea rocking across my body.

###

_Eli was sitting at his desk, headphones on and looking sleep deprived, when I keyed open the door to the lab. He didn't notice me at first. I brushed his shoulder, resting on the edge of the desk. His response was delayed._

_"Holyshitleila." He threw the headset down on the desk, standing up and wrapping his arms around me tightly._

_"Hey." I said softly._

_"Are you - alright? Where were you? Dr. Foster has been an absolute wreck. Didn't you even think to __**call**__?" He rambled on, holding me to his chest tightly the whole while. I waited until he stopped talking to reply._

_"It's a long story. Dr. Lightman and I took care of it, in the end. Dr. Foster seemed so angry when we came in." I sighed, wrapping my arms around his waist and pulling myself closer. "I did miss you. We were more or less undercover. It could have been life-or-death if we blew it."_

_"I'm not mad." He said, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. "I was just worried. I haven't been sleeping well, worrying about you. We actually stayed here last night, combing over those case videos and waiting to hear from you two."_

_I gave a weak smile._

_"I'm sorry. I forget that you don't have the same background, the same outlook on things like this that I was trained in. And Lightman is so by-the-seat-of-his-pants sometime, I swear he's more reckless than anything else."_

_"And you're not? Reckless?"_

_I smirked._

_"It's not reckless when you're well-trained. I was made to do this kind of work. I miss it." I crossed my legs and leaned back against my palms, staring up at the ceiling. "Let me call H and tell her I'm not dead. Then do you want to go back to your place, order a pizza, and pass out?"_

_He leaned back in his rolling chair._

_"Sounds perfect."_

###

I crouched near the back door to the van after Eli had gotten through the gates of the hospital, perched to fling myself out when we reached the emergency gate.

"Visitor check-in... military priority care..." I heard him mutter.

"You want the military lane!" I yelled back. Gillian flinched.

"Sorry, Doctor Foster." I swallowed.

"Military lane?"

"Yeah, Hannah has us cleared through... oh, crap, nevermind, let me..." I clambered through the van, gingerly stepping around the obstacles and people as the car halted at the gate.

"We should be cleared on a 236." I leaned across Eli's lap, shoving my ID at the guard. He took it, surveying it carefully.

"I'll have to check." He said, reaching for his clipboard.

"Don't push it, sergeant." I warned. He looked up at me, then back down at his list.

"Alright, I have you on here for a 236, you can proceed to tunnel A." He said, handing my ID back and passing us a parking tag. I flung the tag on to the dashboard, rolling my eyes. A 236 is a "don't ask questions" code.

"Jackass!" I swore as he let us through the gate, sitting on the inner edge of the passenger side. "His CO will be hearing from me. On the right up here—"

The van hadn't stopped entirely when I threw the door open, jumping out and following around to the back.

"What do you got?" Two orderlies and one doctor came out of the sliding doors as I flung the back of the van open.

"Female, late 30's-early 40's... she was held under hostile conditions for the last 48-ish hours. She seems stable but her heartbeat is erratic, we gave her a glucose gel and I think a little water but she obviously needs more. I haven't debriefed her yet so we don't know anything about how she was treated, or if she was given any drugs, or anything..." I pushed my fingers in to my hairline as the orderlies gingerly slid Gillian's body from the floor of the van on to a stretcher. "That's all I know. That's all."

"You did alright, we're going to help her." The doctor padded me on the arm. I pressed my hand to my forehead, the drive spinning around me. "Does she have a next of kin we can contact?"

"Yeah—" I motioned to Lightman, who was barking an occasional comment at the orderlies and clutching Gill's hand. "He's her husband." They'd been an inseparable unit before I had come to work at the firm, and moreso now that it was official. I still didn't understand HOW they had gotten to her.

The doctor raised an eyebrow at me.

"That's all I have, doctor." I shrugged.

"Alright, thank you. Special Agent Hoffman said she'll be by. You should get cleaned up."

"I'll be staying." I said quietly but firmly. The doctor nodded, then took off following the stretcher in to the building.

###

_I played with a 100-calorie Reese's bar I had in my hand, sitting on the couch in Foster's office._

_"I'm really, really sorry Dr. Foster." I said, finally breaking the plastic open. She surveyed me from the other side of the desk, running a hand through her hair before getting up and closing her office door, sitting on the chair next to me._

_"I try really hard not to feed in to these asinine things he does." She explained, folding her feet up under her. "But he always does it anyway."_

_"I'm not sure what the right way to put this is - but - he's my boss. I mean, you are too, but I don't think I can go against either of you without risking my job. But that makes it impossible when you're in juxtaposition." I bit my lip. "I don't want you to think I don't love working here."_

_She sighed._

_"I know. I just can't help feeling like this situation enables Cal's ridiculous ideas."_

_"We do it for different reasons." I shrugged. "He either doesn't care about his own life, or he's chasing a thrill - that's not my area of expertise. I do it because I can - I was trained to do it. I do it because I don't think it's any more dangerous for me than it is for me to sit in the office, regardless of whether or not it's true. I do it because it's a passion and a commitment and I didn't give up two years of my life to..." I trailed off, frustrated with myself. "But yeah. Not that I knew him before, but my presence is enabling. I'm here, I'm willing..." I dropped my eyes and shrugged again. The balance between field agent and office psychologist was shifting, but it was still too heavily in favor of the former. I'd never get rid of the engrained undertones of fieldwork._

###

I leaned against the back of the van as Ria trailed the stretcher in to the hospital, throwing a glance over her shoulder. Eli stepped out, walking towards me, when his eyes fell on the bullet holes that peppered the black paint. His eyes grew wide.

"You okay?" He asked, unable to rip his eyes from the markers of the near-death experience.

I nodded, my lips tight. He leaned against the tire well next to me.

"Are you?" I asked in return. I knew the answer before it choked in his throat.

My arms found their way around his shoulders, broader than my lankiness, but I did my best to reassure him. His forehead leaned against my shoulder; I could feel his chest shake with a shuddering breath.

"You're okay, you're okay." My voice cracked around the words, my palm rubbing his back.

"God - Gillian, and we... I... you... we could have DIED, those are bullet holes..." He rambled in a groan.

_We're fine. She'll be fine._

"I know." I said, leaning my head against his as his tears soaked the shoulder of my shirt. My words shook a little bit. "I know."

North Arlington wasn't a high-traffic hospital for high-priority cases, and there wasn't enough traffic for them to have to ask us to move. This kind of thing happened enough here that they knew better.


	3. Chapter 3

I made a pit stop in the ladies' room to remove the gory smudges of gunpowder and blood from my face, then headed in to the waiting room. An antsy-looking Lightman was pacing back and forth in front of the receptionist's desk.

"Do you want to go get a cup of tea, Dr. Lightman?" I said hesitantly, resting my hand on his arm. He jumped at my touch, twisting around to face me.

"No, I want to know what the bloody hell is going on with my wife." He snapped back at me.

"I know. Come sit down though." He had more bulk, a sturdier frame, but I was stronger, and my touch didn't leave room for a disagreement. Rational thought processes had left the room. "The doctor told me Hannah was going to stop by, she'll be able to get some answers for us. But until then just..." I sucked in a deep breath. "Relax."

"Relax." He repeated, like it was a swear word. I shrugged my shoulders.

"What else can we do?"

"Leila." I was staring at my hands, still scorched with gunpowder, when Eli's voice distracted me. He was standing above me with two cups of coffee, and standing with him was Hannah.

"Hey." She said softly. She was wearing a work suit, obviously having come from the office, and a lumpy messenger bag was slung over her shoulder. "I found him on the way, figured you could use a coffee."

"Thanks for coming." I said, standing up to give her a hug. Since I'd moved out, we didn't see each other as much as we would have liked to. "Hannah, this is my boss, Dr. Cal Lightman. Dr. Lightman, Special Agent Hannah Hoffman." Lightman lifted his head and raised an eyebrow. Hannah raised a hand. While I'd worked cases on behalf of the firm with Hannah liasing with the DoD, she'd never met Lightman directly.

"Nice to meet you. I'm going to see if I can get you guys some answers, okay?" She said, taking the bag from her shoulder and passing it to me. I looked inside. It was a field bag, one that we all used to keep in the bottom drawer of our desk, stuffed full of clean athletic clothes. Hannah wasn't a field agent – but neither was I, and old habits die hard.

"Make him, drink that." I told Eli, pointing from the coffee to Lightman. "I'm going to go change quick, do you need anything?"

Eli shook his head, sitting down. I nodded.

Lightman was clutching his coffee and staring off in to the distance when I came back in a pair of touch-too-big yoga pants and a UNC t-shirt. Hannah's shoes were too big, though, so my dirty, broken-down old boots poked out from underneath the pants.

"Jealous." Eli muttered, standing up when I came back.

"Sit down." I said quietly, taking the chair on the other side of Lightman. "Have you seen Ria?"

Eli shook his head. I pursed my eyebrows.

"Alright, alright," Hannah burst back in to our group, her eyes steely and her cheeks flushed. "It took a bit of work, but I have your 411." She knelt down in front of Lightman, and I propped my elbows on my knees to lean in to her. "She's okay, but she sustained some internal bleeding that they had to operate on to fix. She's in surgery now but the doctor is optimistically predicting she'll be out in an hour. They're running a full tox panel because of fear of chemical or neurological agents having been used..." Hannah paused and sucked in a deep breath, looking at me.

"Continue, Ms. Hoffman." Lightman was alert, watching Hannah. She raised her eyebrows at me. I lifted my chin, signaling her to continue.

"She has needle marks all over her arms and a couple other places on her body. They have to run another full panel for what could go along with that... tetanus... even HIV." She sighed. "That's all they had. I told them I want real-time updates of any changes in her condition."

Hannah moved to sit on the chair next to me. My head found her shoulder, and she patted my thigh reassuringly.

"You don't have to stay, I know you have a lot to do at the office."

"I can stay." She said. "You should know MP and DIA are taking over this investigation. Because of the involvement of armed forces' personnel. Though this has gone way beyond the scope of DCPD."

"It makes sense. Will we liase through you?"

"You're off this, Leila. You're involved now, you can't objectively function in this case."

"You know that's not true."

"I know you're a professional, but let's worry about your friend first and get the kinks worked out later. I will need to get a statement from everybody in the next 24 hours."

"I can do mine now."

"Nah, rest for a little bit."

I closed my eyes. Hannah got it.

###

"_Leila." Hannah threw herself at me, engulfing me in a hug. "Oh, God, Leila."_

"_Hey." I managed softly, the word cracking in my throat. I was somewhere between numb and on fire, torn between depressing sadness and intense anger. In short, I was a wreck, tears stinging behind my eyes._

"_Hannah." Annie said, stepping forward._

"_Annie." Hannah threw her arms around our mentor as well. Dark circles hung around Annie's eyes, and I knew this was as hard on her as it had been on us._

_It was hard to believe that less than 24 hours ago, I'd had more mundane worries. Less than 24 hours ago, I had no reason to worry._

"_I'm glad you could make it back." Annie said. Hannah nodded._

"_Non c'è problema." She muttered, pressing her lips together._

"_He would have appreciated it."_

_He was Ashton, and he was dead. We stood together inside the hangar at Dover Air Force Base, and a big transport plane had just landed outside._

_Ashton's body would be inside, in a coffin draped with a flag. We wouldn't be allowed to see it; he was mangled beyond recognition. Annie and I had positively identified his face in the remains over satellite feed what felt like years ago, but was more like 24 hours._

_Ash was dead._

_Hannah threw her arm around my shoulders._

_He was dead._

"_You'll be okay, Ahmed." She said, rubbing my arm. I clenched my left fist, and the silver band of the ring Ash had given me for Christmas the first year we'd known each other pushed in to the bone of my finger._

_I certainly didn't feel like anything would ever be okay again._

###

Eli went for a walk, and came back smelling like smoke.

"You smoke?" I said tiredly, moving to sit by him and pulling my legs in to my chest. He shook his head.

"I found Ria outside sucking one down, though."

Oh.

I'd started smoking in training - a bad habit I picked up from Hannah. I quit after Ash left because he'd always hated it. The heady odor of the tobacco soothed me now in a way it shouldn't.

"Is she okay?" I asked tentatively.

"Yeah, she's, um, going to go get cleaned up then come back later on when Foster's awake."

"Good."

"She's out of surgery." Hannah came back towards us, carrying a tablet computer in one hand, her blackberry in the other, a coffee balanced somewhere between them. "Come on, we can debrief in her room. She's not awake yet."

###

**A/N: This chapter wasn't originally part of the story, and I still have mixed thoughts on it.**


	4. Chapter 4

The only precursor to her words was a swallow that I didn't hear.

"Just you, Leila?" Gillian asked, softly. I snapped my head up, shaking off the sleepiness that had slid over my eyes and blinking. The legal pad I'd been drafting my statement on slipped from my lap, clattering in a rustle of papers to the ground.

It was late, and Gillian had been awake for about thirty minutes following her surgery earlier in the day, which was hardly enough for her to give Hannah a statement and assure Lightman about twenty times that she was okay.

"We should call, the um, nurse." I said as soon as I was able to process a thought. She held up a hand, and I could tell it took her an extraordinary effort. "Do you need anything?"

"I'm fine." She propped herself up on the bed. I moved my chair a little closer. "I could use something to drink, though." Wordlessly I stood up and passed her a cup of flat Sprite from the bedside table. Nobody is fine after something like that.

"Slowly." I warned. "And not just me, exactly, but Dr. Lightman did head out a little while ago."

"I don't know how you got him to leave." She looked at me over the top of plastic cup, tipping her head to the side. A white gauze bandage was plastered over her forehead. I sat on the edge of the bed and crossed my legs.

"Raw talent... And compromise." I motioned with my hand to where Eli was draped over the chair in the corner, snoring quietly with his head kinked in to his shoulder at a weird angle. "Emily was sick with worry, and he needed sleep."

Gillian had been missing for about 70 hours, if I remembered correctly – and we both knew Cal hadn't slept for a single one of them. That's an awfully long time to go without sleep, especially the older you get. It was a miracle we – he – hadn't made a mistake in the field. It was admittedly recless.

"And you don't?" She handed me back the soda, and I passed her a green Jello cup with a plastic spoon stuck in it. I raised an eyebrow.

"Been there, done that." I thought about the time I'd been kept awake for nearly 100 hours in training, and my skin crawled. I rubbed my thighs under the tight gray material of the yoga pants, trying to chase off the goosebumps. "I wouldn't be able to sleep well, anyway."

She tilted her head, mouth full of jello, asking for more information without saying a word.

"I can't sleep after a stressful event. Positive or negative. I keep waking up, or dreaming I'm there, or something." I shrugged. "You should try and get some sleep too."

###

_"So," Gillian said when I sat down at her tiny table in the middle of the dance floor, pressing a new flute of champagne in to my palm, "You and Eli, huh?"__  
><em>_I flushed under the alcohol and hid my nose in my champagne for a moment.___

_"Yeah." I said finally. "Really, really yeah."___

_She smiled, reaching out to touch my hand reassuringly. I was only a half-step ahead, sullied by the alcohol, and I liked it. It felt natural. Organic.___

_"Don't let the good ones get away, Leila." She said, squeezing my fingers. The silver of Ashton's ring flashed in the low light, and a pang of guilt shot through me. Gillian must have noticed too, because she dropped her eyes. I pressed my lips together and stared at the ring, twisting it around.___

_"Made that mistake once already." I mumbled. It wasn't really my fault, what happened. But I wonder if I should have gone in to Brian's office and begged to go with. If I should have done SOMETHING. "I was in the covert service before I came to work with you and started my dissertation at Georgetown." I said quietly. "So was he- Ashton- and one of us didn't make it home."___

_"Ashton Moore." She murdered. I looked up through watering eyes. "I saw it in the papers. "___

_It made me feel better to know Ash's sacrifice hadn't gone unnoticed, though I hadn't noticed it in the papers. I assumed it hadn't been.___

_"I think we would have been together forever. I think we would have gotten married, had a baby." I mussed the stem of the glass between my thumb and forefinger. "I suppose I'm pushing luck to hope to find that again."___

_Cal came up behind Gill, where she couldn't see him, but he listened as she answered.___

_"Never be afraid to dream, Leila. Sometimes things crash down around you for a reason." She smiled and squeezed my hand one more time before letting go and turning to Cal. "Hi honey." She half-laughed. He was still watching me.___

_"Phoenix from the ashes and all that." He said before pulling Gillian up by her hand and sweeping her away, leaving me sitting alone at their table for two as dancers swirled around me._

###

"So what about you and Eli?" She changed the subject, pushing the green remains around in the cup. I shrugged, twisting the top sheet in my fingertips.

"He's great." I smiled toward the ground before turning my eyes to look at him. His chest rose and fell softly under the fabric of his sweatshirt – Hannah had sent her intern on a recon mission for clean clothes, though the best they'd been able to do was another one of Hannah's UNC sweatshirts and a pair of scrub pants - the line of his mouth pulled tight and his eyes shut. The scruff around his jaw line was rougher than usual, and a tiny slice on his cheek was held together with a butterfly bandage. "Perfect, even." I turned back to look at Gillian. She smiled at me, setting the empty cup down on the end table. The inside of her forearm was bruised from the IV and dotted with tiny other bruises. My brows puckered, and I fought a frown.

"Talk to me about him." She said. As much as I felt weird talking to my boss, I understood the almost frantic desire to fill space and thoughts with something other than recent memories.

"Well I mean, you know him. He's just like that but better. When we first moved in together," I paused, laughing quietly at the memory, "I was out shopping, and I picked up a tie from him from Nordstroms or something, I think it was Ralph Lauren. And his face just said everything..." I contoured my features into a mix of confusion and disgust. She laughed too. "I started dropping by vintage thrift shops after that. But he still knows that I like my brands. And the apartment is just, beautiful, it's full but not cluttered and homey without being chintzy." In my mind I curled in under the satin sheets and thick blankets of our bed.

"I'd like to see it sometime." She remarked. I nodded.

"I'll cook for you - both of you, I suppose - sometime." My mouth watered at the sound of food, and I realized for the first time how hungry I was. I drummed my fingertips on the edge of the bed, the dim light playing off the rings I'd slipped back on to my left hand.

My stomach made a loud gurgling noise.

"You two should go home too. I'll be fine." She said, leaning back and closing her eyes.

"No, shifts and all that. I told Eli to leave but he wouldn't." I looked at the clock on the wall. "Ria should be here soon anyway." It was almost 3:30 am. Gillian shuffled around in the bed. "Are you uncomfortable? I really can get a doctor—"

"I'm fine, Leila. Sore, but I'll be okay."

"I'm going to go check with them and make sure everything is okay, then, are you sure you don't want anything?"

"You to stop worrying."

I hung in the doorframe, looking at her.

"I'll worry. We'll all worry. We'll all blame ourselves." I shrugged. I already blamed myself. Her eyes echoed the same wide sadness I held in mine. "I'll be right back."

Her eyes were closed before I shut the door behind me.

###

"I'm sorry." I said as I settled on to Eli's lap, draping my legs over the edge of the chair and wrapping my arms around his neck.

"What for?" He asked, resting his forehead in my hair.

"That you had to see... that side of me." I thought back to when I crashed in to the van, smeared with blood, Glock in one hand. I shook my head against him.

"Why? You saved Foster's life." He motioned his head to where she slept quietly, the heart monitor beeping steadily.

"I know, I... that's just not the side of me I ever intended for you to see. I thought I buried that part of me when I hung up my holster. Leila Ahmed, covert field operative, was dead. Or I thought she was." I sighed heavily.

"I love you no matter what you are." He replied, running a hand through my ponytail.

"But if you don't know that side of me, do you really know me?"

"Do you really know yourself?"

I shrugged, shifting around until I found a comfortable nook. I did know myself, more intimately than he could imagine. But Hannah knew me too. So had Ash. I didn't need to explain it to them. They GOT it. They WERE it. Every battle, they'd fought right there beside me. Every mental jump, they'd made it over too. Every ethical battle, they'd lost - or won.

"Yes." I said finally. "But I'm okay with you not knowing parts of me."

Those were the same parts Lightman understood. I could see it in the flash of his eyes.

Eli made a noise deep in his throat. I let sleep pull me under.

Something solid hitting under me woke me up.

"Eli?" I muttered.

"Shhh, Leila, go back to sleep." His voice replied. My eyes flew open, and I was disoriented for a moment. We were home, which meant somehow he'd carried me out of the hospital still-sleeping and made it this far home.

"What... how..."

"Sleep." He said, wrapping an arm around my waist as he laid down next to me. I nodded. Maybe I had been out of field work too long, because I let go of the worry and stopped the process of waking up in its tracks.


	5. Chapter 5

**Still not sure where the pacing on this one is going, but I think this is what more people were interested in **

**In other news, ff net is making me VERY angry lately. Gah, sorry for any double posting.**

###

**Day 1, 0h00m**

It had started on a pretty vanilla night. It was around 11:30, midnight maybe, and I was in Hannah's apartment in Crystal City after attending a reunion networking event I really didn't want to go to.

"Did you write this piece on Syria?" I asked, flipping the page in last month's issue of _Foreign Policy_. Hannah popped the cork on a new bottle of red wine.

"Maybe?" She asked. "I think I remember consulting on one, but I haven't submitted anything for publication recently."

"You should, boost your resume." I said, nudging my wine glass across the table towards her.

"I think your phone is going off." She inclined her head toward the countertop dividing her kitchen and living room. A harsh, computerized sound was coming from it.

"Fucking Droid." I swore, popping to my bare feet in one swift movement and heading for it. "I swear, just because my younger brother recommended it..." I trailed off when I picked up the phone. I had one missed call that I hadn't heard; my phone was giving me a '5% battery or less left! Please plug in your charger.' alert; and the current call was frozen on the screen.

Emily Lightman?

"This is Leila." I asked, rubbing my hand over my face and trying to chase away the sleepiness from my eyes. It was the middle of the night on a Thursday, and I assumed something was wrong at Georgetown.

"Leila." Her voice was tight, panicked. I heard incoherent mumbling in the background. "You need to... they... my dad..." Her words shook.

"What happened?" I replied quickly. Her breath hitched in to the phone. "Em, just, take a breath, and tell me what happened."

"They took her. They **have** her." The words slurred together in a lamenting groan. My stomach toppled to the floor.

"Who, Emily?" My words were becoming more insistent, and I had Hannah's attention now too, listening intently from the couch.

"Gillian."

###

DCPD were crawling the house by the time I got there. I shoved a bill – I'm not sure what the denomination was – in to the cabbie's hand, tumbling out on to the curb and bolting towards the door.

"Sorry, who are you again?" The cop posted at the front door stopped me. I raised an eyebrow at him. I still wasn't used to being questioned like this.

"Um, a family friend – I don't have my credentials on me—"

"Leila, oh, thank god." The door swung open behind the cop and a red-eyed and distraught Emily threw her arms around me. It was then that I noticed a smear of blood under my feet. I rubbed her back as she buried her forehead in to my shoulder. "I um, I tried to call... Eli... and Ria..." Her voice trailed off.

"Let's go sit with your dad, and Eli is off this week, went home for a family reunion – I'll give him a call and see if he can't get back." I said, squeezing her hand as she led me through the crime scene of a house. "And Ria was at an achievements dinner with her sister but she should be back in the metro area by the morning."

Lightman was walking a circle around the four-poster bed in the master bedroom, several blue case files spread around the bed. He was wearing plaid pajama pants and an undershirt, and I hesitated in the doorway.

"Dad?" Emily said softly. His head snapped toward us, looking at me. "It was either her or Mom."

I buried the toe of my shoe in to the carpet, waiting for permission to cross the threshold to the bedroom.

"Well, come in, then." He said finally, obviously agitated. When I got closer, I saw his eyes were red and puffy.

"What happened?" I asked, picking up the nearest file.

"It must be related to this Thompson case. I should have known better... look, there's a history in his psych profile..."

"Dr. Lightman," I closed the Thompson file and set it back on the bed, speaking more softly this time. "What happened?"

He leaned against the trunk at the end of the bed and dropped his head.

"I was up here, reading a book." He started after a drawn-out silence. "She – Gill – was downstairs, in the, um, the kitchen."

"I was watching a movie in the living room." Emily added, coming over and sitting down next to her father. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "The door crashed open, and I went to jump up but somebody was holding me down – I couldn't see, the lights had gone out – they said somebody flipped the breaker box."

"I came running down the stairs, but they were waiting – there were three, maybe four of them – and then they took her. Tied me and Emily right up and took her screaming out the door."

My first thought was that that was weird. If this was an abduction attached to the Thompson case, it meant military were involved, and it would have been easier to drag Gillian out if she'd been knocked unconscious first. But I didn't say that.

"What do the police have?" I asked, folding myself in to a cross-legged position and re-opening the blue file.

"Nothing worthwhile, and I don't have anybody in PD I can push."

"I'll see if I can get a bit of DoD back-up." I said. "I think we need to get eyes back on that Thompson footage and finish going through those old records."

"Maybe you can ask Loker to help you with that."

"He's still out of town." I pressed my fingers to my forehead. "I'm going to give him a call and see if he can get back sooner."

"He damn well better." Lightman snapped. I went silent, looking up.

"I'm sure he'll come as quickly as he can, Dr. Lightman. We all love her." I said softly. "And Ria should be back tonight, I'll have her meet me first thing in the morning. We might have to take this in to our own hands, but I'll find her if it's the last thing I do." My eyes closed. My pulse thumped in my ears, adrenaline overriding the haze of the wine. "Emily, maybe you should go back to school." The look on Lightman's face clearly portrayed what he thought of that idea. "Or to your mom's. I'm sure you want to help but this is probably going to get dirty."

"I do want to help." She insisted.

"I know, and if there's anything you can do, we'll give you a call, alright?"

"I'm staying the night." She said stubbornly. I sighed.

"Fine. Can you do me a favor, then – here's my phone, go call Hannah Hoffman, she's in my contacts, and have her send me over a tech package and a digital planning pack."

###

In the bottom of my linen closet, underneath a stack of swiffer dusting cloths, hidden in the kind of black box that make-up artists keep their supplies in, I kept an e-kit.

Emily stood behind me, arms crossed, and two cops stood at the front door of my apartment. Hannah had been able to send me the digital materials, but there was no access to the kind of tech package I wanted to run. The police didn't even know what I was talking about.

The first thing I did was load a full clip in to my Glock, tucking it safely in to the waistband of my jeans. The metal pressed cool and worn smooth against the small of my back.

The box was moderately sized, and it had wheels, but I dragged it out in to the middle of our living room. The lock on the top was sensitive to my fingerprint, and it took a couple tries (I always swore to stop using them) to pop it open.

"Woah." Emily said. "This is like, James Bond stuff."

I looked up at her, shuffling through the contents of the box to make sure everything I knew was there, was there.

"Something like that." Satisfied, I flipped the lid shut and locked the case, wheeling it behind me. "Alright, guys, I'm ready to go."

###

"_The customer you are trying to reach is not in service. Please try again later_." The call ended, and I resisted the urge to chuck my phone in to the window in frustration.

"Come **on**, Eli." I said, redialing the call as I opened up my laptop.

"_The customer you are trying to reach is not in service. Please try again later_."

**TO: LOKER, E **

** FROM: AHMED, L leila..us**

** SUBJECT: CALL ME**

**Need u back here asap. Sry to cut your trip short. Call me when u get this so I can brief u and change the flight. –L**

"Any luck?" Ria was standing near the Keurig in the break room as it

sputtered out a strong cup of coffee.

"None." I said, setting my phone down on the table. "We need to get eyes on that footage, we're not going to be able to wait for him. And I hate to say it, but I need to grab some sleep or I'm going to be useless tomorrow."

"How can you sleep at a time like this?" Ria wrapped her hands around the coffee.

"Necessity." I said, shutting my laptop. "I'm going to go curl up on the couch in the lab, I have my phone or you can come find me."

"I honestly can't believe you're going to sleep."

I held up my hands and shrugged as I backed out of the room. The couch was a little hard, but I was tired and it felt good. Knowing how to deal with adrenaline was an acquired privilege, and I wrapped my arms around my jacket, curling my legs in to my chest.

I may have had the privilege of sleeping, but I didn't sleep well. I screamed so loud in myself I woke myself up, drenched in sweat. Nothing kept the nightmares away.


	6. Chapter 6

"I can't help feeling we would all be safer in one place, still." I said quietly, folding my arms on top of my chest and resting my head atop them. From my seat, I could see an MP – military police – standing near the front door. His hands were folded neatly behind his back, flashing the undersides of his wrists and his palms in to the house.

"That's why we're here, Leila." Emily said, rubbing the back of her hand at her eyes, smearing black liner around them. She had a biology book spread on the table in front of her, but the logorhythmic graph paper was blank and untouched.

"We're not all here." I corrected. She raised both her eyebrows at me. Ria and Eli had made an escorted trip to the office to pick up paperwork. I shifted around, dropping my legs and crossing them at the ankles.

Gillian's kidnapping and torture had sent me spiraling back in to field mode. But five days later, adrenaline wasn't enough to keep me going. I was becoming edgy, and tense, and overprotective. I knew consciously that it was a combination of things out of my control, but I couldn't fight the subconscious, ingrained fight response that was running through my body.

The stove dinged, and I jumped to my feet, sliding the oven mitt on my hand as I paced the short distance. A tray of 12 perfect sugar cookies, some with chicks and some with bunnies embedded in their plain doughy surface, stared back at me.

"Can I ask you a question?" Emily asked as I transferred the cookies to a cooling rack.

"Sure." I put the still-hot metal tray down on the stove.

"What happened – to Gill –" She ran her hands down the undersides of her forearms, gesturing. "What **happened**? My dad won't tell me about it."

I leaned against the counter, throwing a glance at the stairway where Emily's father and stepmom had retreated about ten minutes ago to shower and change clothes.

"If your dad won't tell you, I don't know if it's my place to."

"I think... it's important for me to know. To be aware."

I threw another glance at the MP and sighed. He hadn't moved.

"They're not sure exactly what drugs were used on her. It's bad to begin with because we know nothing of the sterility of the situation, besides that it wasn't high. HIV. Tetanus. All very real possibilities.

"But past that..." I stopped, my brows knitting together. "I... Em... she was tortured, not just physically but physiologically and mentally. We don't know what kind of drugs yet, and we may never. Some kind of neurological agent. They cause pain... without the executor having to lift a finger. It's barbaric, but it's effective."

The problem here was that whatever they wanted to know, Gillian didn't. She could beg and cry and promise to tell them whatever they wanted, but she didn't know, so she couldn't.

"But they couldn't be effective, because she didn't have anything to tell... the fact that she didn't go mental is astounding. But you've known her longer than I have; you know she's strong."

"Why do people do things like that." Emily tucked the graph paper inside her textbook and shut it. "Who comes up with these things? Torture? Why would anybody ever do that?"

I cracked my toes against the linoleum. I knew the answer to her question, but it wasn't the right one.

"I dunno, Em." I lied. She watched me for elaboration, but I didn't. "Hand me a napkin, will you? I'll take one of these to the MP and maybe he'll trade me some information and Ria and Eli in return."

###

"_Leila—" He started. "What happened…"_

_I picked my eyes up to look at him. His forehead was creased, and my eyes were heavy and sad under the hazy city nightlight. D.C., our city, surrounded us in the hum of late-night traffic and swaddled us in August humidity. Somewhere deep down I knew it wasn't August. I wrapped my hands around my cup of hot chocolate. Then I shook my head._

"_I just… Ash…" I didn't know what to say, a strained sound between a groan and a whine coming from my throat. My heart ached down in to my stomach. My eyes burned as they watered of their own accord. "I'm sorry we never got to talk about it."_

"_It's not your fault—"_

"_But it is, at least a little." I shrugged. "But I just… it's not that I didn't care about you. It's not that I was playing you, or anything like that. You're one of my best friends. You might know me better than anybody else." I closed my eyes as tears escaped them, running down my face, and tipped my head back against the low concrete wall I was propped against._

"_I worried about you."_

"_I worried about you, too." I said with an ironic smile, looking at him again through wet eyes. I set my cup down and reached for his hand, pushing my fingers in to his. The light from the lantern threw shadows in to his blue eyes. I swallowed hard. _

"_It's ironic, you know, they claim to be the true Islam but there's no God that would ever approve of that." I shook my head. The violence. The blood. I'd been raised a Muslim. That wasn't what they taught._

_Ashton being blown apart flashed before my eyes._

"_I'm sorry." He said softly._

"_It's not your fault." I said, moving closer to him. It's not your fault you died. He let go of my hand, draping his arm over my shoulder as I curled up into his side. I slid an arm behind his back, resting my cheek on the fabric of his sweatshirt, and readjusting the blanket over my legs. "I was going to wait for you."_

_I had been through the wringer before Ashton, and it had taken me a long time to let myself fall in love with him._

_He shrugged, his arm moving against my shoulders. With his free hand he flicked off the lantern, throwing us in to darkness save for the dim lights twinkling from skyscrapers around us._

"_It's not like that, Leila." He said, his voice hoarse and his words heavy. I nodded against his chest, closing my eyes. He ran a steady hand through my hair, bringing it to rest on the side of my cheek. His heart beat strong and steady under my ear._

_Inshallah._

"_I love you, Ash." I said, tears spilling out my eyes and running across the seams of the big fabric letters of his GWU sweatershirt._

"_I love you too." He mused, his lips pressing against the top of my head. "If only that was enough."_

_I'll wait for you._

"_Don't wait for me. I'll see you someday."_

_Don't go._

"_Don't go." I choked._

"_I can't stay." He laced his fingers in to mine, a sense of finality in his motions. I looked up at him, my jaw shaking. "Be strong, Leils. I'm watching out for you." And he was gone._

_I woke up screaming, panic rushing through my chest; Ash's silver ring warm and clutched tightly in my right first._

"_Leila!" Ria shouted as she came skidding around the corner, her heels grasping for contact on the waxed linoleum floor. I sat up shakily, sweat beading my forehead._

"_I'm fine; I'm fine." I said, re-tying my ponytail._

"_You were screaming bloody murder." She raised a disbelieving eyebrow at me._

"_I'm fine." I said, swallowing hard and standing up and cradling my shoes in one hand. My knees shook. "Let's get back to work. Do we have the preliminary workup from DCPD yet?"_

###

"Lieutenant?" I asked, cracking open the door and sneaking my body outside.

"Ma'am, you really shouldn't be out here." He had cracked his head to the side when I had first laid my hand on the doorknob. He didn't know I had a gun at my waistband and a knife strapped to my leg. With my empty hand, I gave a cursory touch to wear I would have worn a side arm. He got the hint.

"We made cookies." I offered the napkin to him. Two cookies, still warm, were wrapped inside. He looked at me. "I won't tell your C.O. It's cold out here." I shoved the cookies at him so I could frisk my hands up and down my arms.

"Well, thank you much, then." He had a southern drawl.

"No problem." I sighed, hugging my sweater closer in to me. A few snow flurries came tumbling down out of the sky.

"Can I help you with something, ma'am?"

"If you could check in and see where the rest of our party is I'd be pretty grateful." I replied.

"If you'll go back inside, I'll see what I can do."

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

"Thank you." I said, slipping back in to the warmth of the house.

Gillian was sitting at the counter with Emily, spreading Nutella on a cookie. Her hair was damp and less than perfect, her cheeks flushed, and a fluffy robe wrapped on top of her pajamas. Emily dipped a finger in the Nutella then stuck it in her mouth, and they both laughed. I hovered by the door, not wanting to interrupt a private moment.

"You lot gonna be alright down here?" Lightman's voice interrupted my thought process, and I turned on my heel over to where he was popping out a sleeper sofa. He also had wet hair, slicked back out of his face. His eyes were tired, old scruff ran along his jaw, and he had pulled a sweatshirt on top of plaid pajama pants. I bet he didn't sleep with a knife holstered to his thigh.

"It'll be fine." I sat down on the arm of the sofa. "I'm hoping they'll be back soon though, I don't want to sleep alone. That might be a bit too freaky."

"We can give a call down to DCPD..."

I shook my head.

"Dr. Lightman, a) you know DCPD is useless, and b) I already set a bribe in motion with the MP."

"That's my girl." He smirked, tossing me a throw pillow. I stacked it neatly near the others under the coffee table. I slumped back against the couch with a sigh. "You alright, Leila?"

A sharp knock on the door interrupted my response. I jumped to my feet. I couldn't see the MP at the window anymore.


End file.
